Iranian languages South Asia IndoEuropean languages of the

Iranian languages; South Asia

Indo-European languages of the area Aryan Nuristani Kati Indo-Iranian Dardic Kashmiri… Iranian Persian (Farsi, Dari, Tajiki), Kurdish languages, Balochi, Pashto… Indo-Aryan

Iranian languages

Iranian languages Wikipedia. org

South Asia Карта: Matthew Dryer

South Asia as a linguistic area Dravidian Indo-European Indo-Aryan Iranian (areal periphery) Dardic Nuristani Sino-Tibetan (areal periphery) Austroasiatic (areal periphery): Munda Burushaski

Languages of India 1991 Census of India: 114 languages < 1, 576 mother tongues (with more than 10, 000 speakers) + 1, 796 “unclassified” mother tongues The largest languages: Hindustani: Hindi (> 260 mln), Urdu (> 63 mln. ) Bangla (> 193 mln. ), Gujarati (> 46 mln. ), Dravidian: Telugu (> 74 mln. ), Tamil (> 68 mln. ) , Kannada(> 37 mln. ), Malayalam (> 33 mln. )

South Asia as a linguistic area Colin Masica: Retroflex consonants Postpositions, OV, Adj N Ideophones, echo-reduplication “Dative subjects” Hindi (Bhatt 2003) Quotatives: specific complementizers introducing direct speech (< forms of the verb ‘say’)

History: Iranian languages Old Iranian Avestan beginning of the 1 millenium BCE Old Persian 6 -4 c BCE … Middle Iranian 4 c BC – 1 millenium AD Middle Persian (Pahlavi), Sogdian, Parthian, … New Iranian

History: Indo-Aryan languages Old Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit mid 2 nd millennium – 3 -2 c BCE Classical Sanskrit mid 1 st millennium BCE, Panini Indian epic poetry 3 -2 c BCE: Ramayana, Mahabharata Middle Indo-Aryan Prakrits, Pali, Apabhraṃśa (mainly the 1 st millennium AD) New Indo-Aryan

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General tendencies From synthetic languages to analytic languages (postpositions, etc) From fusion to agglutination From VO to OV From accusative alignment to split accusative/ergative alignment Originally dependent marking, later pronominal clitics akin to head marking

General tendencies These tendencies are not found everywhere, though. Dravidian lgs are more or less synthetic In India more analytic languages are located in the eastern part Kashmiri: the usual order is SVO

Complex predicates / compound verbs Predicates normally consist of two (or more parts). Persian (Karimi 2008) Persian only has about 130 simplex verbs. (Cf. the same picture in East Caucasian. ) Urdu (Butt 2005)

Complex predicates “Lexical verb” + Light verb (which contains the grammatical information). Monoclausality: Complex predicates do not constitute several clauses. Probably “complex predicates” is an umbrella term for a number of more or less different phenomena.

Case systems In many modern Indo-Iranian languages, case systems are considerably reduced (up to 2 -3 cases). The borderline between cases and postpositions is not always obvious. Hindi: Basic cases Nom & Obl vs “Secondary” cases/postpositions (Erg, Gen, Dat/Acc, Abl/Instr etc. ) Dravidian languages: Many markers treated as locative cases in some descriptions are thought to be postpositions in other descriptions.

Partial ergativity In many Iranian, Indo-Aryan and Dardic languages, one observes ergative alignment in past tense (or in (some) past tenses). (Haig 2008: 12)

Partial ergativity In fact, in Hindi in past tense (de Hoop & Narasumhan 2008)… ergative marker is found on the most volitional agents ergative clitic marks volitionality even with some intransitive verbs:

… on a par with DOM In many Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages the specific/referential patient takes peculiar marking. Hindi (de Hoop & Narasumhan 2008) NB: =ko is the dative postposition

Iranian languages: word order Don Stilo: Many Iranian languages violate statistical universals related to word order and differ between each other For example, basically OV but

Iranian languages: word order Possible explanation: Iranian languages as a “buffer zone” between left-branching languages (e. g. , Turkic) and right-branching languages (e. g. , Arabic). Possible remarkable consequence: circumpositions (fit into any branching tendencies). Kurdish (Mc. Carus 2009):

Iranian languages: ezafe Primarily in Western Iranian, there is a specific marker which links the head and the attribute (adjective, possessor, sometimes relative clause) Persian (Kahnemuyipour 2006) mard-e châq ‘fat man' man-Ez fat Head marking? Or not? (Ezafe occurs immediately before the attribute, not necessarily on the head). Cp. Zaza Kurdish [láz- mь n]-o pil ‘my elder son’ son-EZF. POS. M 1 SG: OBL-EZF. ATR. M elder (Smirnova, Ejubi 1998: 35)

South Asia: causatives Some languages distinguish between direct and indirect causatives. Hindi (Bhatt 2003): Direct (contact) causative: Indirect (distant) causative:

South Asia: ideophones Dravidian languages: Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu